


Call it Destiny

by WhenTheMoonMetTheSun



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-08-02 10:11:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16303187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenTheMoonMetTheSun/pseuds/WhenTheMoonMetTheSun
Summary: Robin meets Chrom during their last year of college, and something just clicks between them. Modern college AU snapshots based on the prompts for Chrobin Week 2018.





	1. Celebration

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to make sure I got something out for Chrobin Week this year, so I'm tackling the prompts with a compilation of drabbles in a modern-day college setting. They'll be in chronological order starting with the day they met. Enjoy this collection!

The music is loud, the song’s thumping bass echoing in her chest. Robin can hear people shouting to be heard over the music, but she can’t make out any of the words. She glances behind her to see if Gaius or Olivia is following, but it seems she’s lost them somewhere between the foyer and the kitchen of this house. Still, she promised she’d get drinks, so she’s on a (solo) mission now.

She pushes deeper into the house, past clumps of drunk partygoers (a good sign for booze) and spies the kitchen island laden with snacks and tepid cans of beer. She grabs a six-pack ring discreetly, not that anyone standing near the booze is sober enough to notice, and heads back the way she came.

There’s a crowd gathered near the basement, which seems promising, so she heads down the stairs. People are hanging over the railing, onlookers to a game of pool, but there’s no sign of Gaius or Olivia in the crowded room. Her pool game isn’t too shabby, so she makes a mental note to come back later that night once she’s a little less sober.

 _Nowhere to go but up_ , she thinks, easily spotting the stairs leading to the second floor. She doesn’t even know whose house this is, but there are frames on the wall, some of them askew from people bumping into them.

She’s distracted by the pictures, noticing a split second too late the man tripping over his feet on the stairs and falling toward her. She steps back reflexively and misses the previous step. She feels white-hot panic, her fingers clenching tightly in the holes of the six-pack ring, and braces for impact.

Suddenly, she collides with something sturdy and not at all sharp-edged like stairs. There are hands on her shoulders, keeping her steady.

She finally hears someone clearly over the music. “Vaike, watch it! You nearly took this girl out.”

The man—Vaike—looks vaguely confused, half-holding the railing and half-eyeing the beer that’s spilled over his fingers. “Whoa, sorry ‘bout that!”

His words are a little slurred, but he seems bright-eyed. He leans a little closer to focus on her. “Say, you’re kinda cute. What do you say to getting out of here with ol’ Teach?”

She rolls her eyes, but the man who caught her, conveniently still holding her, jumps in. “Leave her alone,” he deadpans, shooing Vaike down the stairs.

The man who saved her sets her upright. “Are you okay?”

She turns to answer and feels the words get stuck in her throat. He’s tall for one, but not too tall, and his features are sharp and regal-looking, with kind eyes and messy hair. He seems too handsome to be real, the kind of handsome you don’t really see in real life. And despite all that, he seems familiar, though she’s sure she would have remembered a face like his.

He leans in closer and repeats the question, thinking she must not have heard him.

“I…yeah, I’m fine. Thank you.”

“I’m glad.” He smiles, and of course, it’s a great smile. “I’m really sorry about Vaike. He always gets too drunk at these things.”

“We all overdo it sometimes,” she shrugs.

He motions to the six-pack in her hand. “Are you planning on overdoing it? I know we’re celebrating but…”

“Oh!” She shakes her head. “These aren’t all for me, don’t worry. I was looking for my friends, but I can’t seem to find them.”

“Well, I’m happy to help you look,” he says, motioning for her to continue the rest of the way up the stairs.

She hadn’t even noticed they hadn’t moved yet, too caught up in making conversation with this stranger. His offer is enticing. It’s the first win of the season for the Shepherds—the first win of her last year of college—and though she’s not a diehard sports fan, the spirit of revelry is contagious. She wants to make this year count, and something about this chance encounter with a handsome stranger gives her a good feeling about the rest of it.

“Are you sure?” she asks. “I don’t want to keep you from your own friends.”

He grins. “I’m hanging out with my friend right now.”

She gives him a look and can’t help but laugh. She supposes that when you look like that, you can get anyone to be your friend. “Well, when you put it that way, how can I refuse?”

“You definitely can,” he clarifies quickly. “Just so you know.”

Yes, she knew she had a good feeling about him. “It sounds like you’re backing out,” she teases.

“Never.” His smile reaches his eyes. He reaches to pull a beer off the ring, then a second, and pops the tabs open. He hands one to her.

“I’m Chrom, by the way.”

“Robin.”

“Robin,” he repeats like he’s committing it to memory. He raises his beer. “To new friends?”

She bumps her beer against his with a smile. “To new friends.”


	2. Twins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrom runs into Robin on the quad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definitely going to be late on all the days, but better late than never lol

He’s on his way across the quad, trying to stuff a book in his bag and walk at the same time, when he spots her. She’s sitting under a tree with a book propped open against her backpack, a notebook in her lap. He recognizes her right away, the stark white of her hair unmistakable. It’d been the first thing he’d noticed about her the night he caught her falling down the stairs.

He doesn’t remember all the details of that night last week—Whose idea was it to do shots?—but he clearly remembers her shit-talking circles around him while she thoroughly kicked his ass at pool. He’s competitive, but he doesn’t think he’s ever laughed so hard at someone intentionally trying to goad him. He wouldn’t say it to her face, but it was kind of adorable.

They’d exchanged phone numbers, but all he had managed to text her was something showing concern for her wellbeing the next morning. She doesn’t make him nervous exactly, but his hands sweat when he thinks of texting her and making a fool of himself. It certainly wouldn’t be hard—one night had made him very familiar with her wit and sharp tongue.

Chrom momentarily thinks about walking past like he hasn’t seen her, but the thought dissipates with every step closer he takes. He had told her they were friends, after all, and friends crash other friend’s study sessions.

“Robin!” he calls as he gets closer.

She doesn’t look up, and he briefly worries that he has the wrong girl until a few seconds later she looks up from her notes. Her face lights up in recognition, which eases his nerves.

“Oh, hey,” she says, leaning back on her hands to meet his gaze. “I didn’t think I’d see you on this side of campus. Economics major, right?”

He towers over her from where he’s standing, barely under the shade of the tree. She doesn’t make a move to stand, so he crouches down to her level. “You remembered.”

She laughs, setting her notebook aside. “I’m surprised _you_ remember anything at all.”

“I wasn’t _that_ drunk,” he protests, though his ears feel a little hot.

Robin winces and teases, “Yeah, you kinda were. Do you remember challenging Gaius to arm wrestle and then falling flat on your ass while you tried to grab his hand?”

“That…didn’t happen.”

“Okay, fine, the arm wrestling didn’t, but you did fall on your ass at some point. I think.”

“And you didn’t catch me?” he teases back, falling into the groove of the banter. “I caught you.”

“You’re right. I do owe you one.”

“I know how you can make it up to me,” he says without thinking. He doesn’t even know what he means by that. He just wants to keep the conversation going.

She raises an eyebrow at him. “What did you have in mind?”

“Uh…” He fumbles for something, _anything_ , to say that wouldn’t sound too presumptuous. He notices she’s wearing Ylisse U’s game day shirt like he is—naturally, since the Shepherds play again that night—and he takes the opening. “Go to the game with me tonight?”

“Ah…” She averts her eyes, sounding sheepish. “I wasn’t planning on going, actually. I wanted to get a head start on an essay I have due next week. It’s really lame, I know.”

“N-no, of course not,” he says, suddenly disappointed. “Maybe next time.”

She meets his gaze again, studying him. “Though I guess I can always start earlier today and meet you at the stadium later. Does that work?”

His disappointment dissipates in an instant, and he nods eagerly. “Absolutely. How will I find you?”

“I’ll be the girl wearing the same shirt as you.”

He rolls his eyes, but his smile doesn’t budge. “I hate to break it to you, Robin, but you and I may not be the only ones wearing this shirt.”

She sighs heavily, playing up her exasperation. “Alright, then I’ll text you.”

“Cool.”

Robin begins to gather up her things, neatly packing up her notebook and books into her bag. The bag looks stuffed to the brim, and Chrom can’t imagine how she hauls that around all day.  

He springs to his feet and sticks out his hand to help her up once she’s done. “I’ll see you later then?”

Robin smiles and takes his hand, her grip firm. “Later it is.”

Her hand slips from his, and she waves over her shoulder, making her way farther and farther away from the quad. He stares after her and calls out, “Can’t wait!” after she’s far from hearing range.


	3. Corrupted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin muses about Chrom, and he hits a snag.

Robin wakes to the sound of a buzz, followed by another one, and then another one. She groans and stretches an arm out from under the blankets, wondering who could be texting her so early in the morning. She grabs her phone and squints against the bright light of the screen as she looks through her notifications. _Chrom - 3 messages_ , it reads beneath the time, an ungodly 6:38 AM.

_Still up for helping me with my paper tosay?_

_*Today_

_Sorry_

She should have known it’d be him, their plan to meet up notwithstanding. One thing she’s quickly learned is that Chrom is a morning person, with even weekends not deterring him from being up at the crack of dawn. She almost envies it, but then remembers how nice it is to be curled up in her bed with the sun’s rays seeping into her room and quickly gets over the idea.

Plus, Chrom usually goes to bed early, which means she’s free to focus on other things late into the night without Chrom taking up mental real estate. Not that she’s been thinking about him a lot. She thinks about him a normal amount like she would about any friend.

Any friend who was handsome and kind and had a bit of a hero complex that meant they had to befriend every girl they saved from tripping over some stairs. She imagines she’s probably not the only one, which is irksome, but she refuses to unpack that thought right now.

And now it’s not even 7 AM and she’s fully awake, dwelling on Chrom. She could try to go back to sleep, but the minute the thought forms she knows she’s not going to. She groans again.

_Yeah, yeah, grabbing coffee and I’ll head over_ , she writes back and drops her phone onto the mattress.

By the time she’s up and ready to go it’s nearly 7:30, so she texts him that she’s on her way and grabs a granola bar for the road. She stops at the coffee shop closest to his apartment and then starts the walk downhill to where he lives, the hot coffee keeping her hands warm in the nippy autumn air. She tries not to think about the grueling walk back up to her dorm that awaits her.

Chrom must have been waiting because the door swings open before she even knocks, and he smiles like he hasn’t seen her in weeks, not days.

“Thank god you’re here,” he breathes and accepts the cup she offers him gratefully.

“Good morning to you, too. What’s going on?”

He ushers her inside and directs her to his bedroom, where his laptop is open on his desk with a blank document on the screen.

He grimaces. “I can’t find my file.”

She stares and sets her cup on the edge of the desk. “What do you mean you can’t find it?”

“I don’t know, Robin. I don’t know what happened to it!” He sits down at the desk heavily. “I know I saved it, and now it’s gone.”

“Okay, let me look,” she says to stave off the look of panic on his face. He nods and lets her sit down, hovering behind her as she clicks through his previous files. She spots a recent file name that might be it: _Macroecononics_. She ignores the misspelling and clicks to open it. His laptop makes an error noise and a little window pops up that makes her heart sink.

“File…corrupted?!” He reads over her shoulder, eyes widening over at the additional details in the error message. “No no no no no. This isn’t happening. This _isn’t_ happening!”

He growls in frustration, and her gaze follows him as he collapses face down onto his unmade bed. The crushing disappointment of losing work is one Robin knows well, and she wouldn’t wish it on anybody, least of all him.

“Chrom, it’s okay,” she says and gets up to comfort him, sitting on the edge of the bed by his hip. “I’ll help you write it again. It’s happened to me, too, and everything turned out fine. We’ll work through it together.”

His reply is muffled by a pillow.

“Huh?”

He turns his head toward her and repeats sadly, “I swear I had at least a thousand words written. I don’t want you to think I asked you to come to write it for me or something.”

She smiles. “I don’t think that.”

He watches her carefully, his brow furrowed for another moment before he relaxes with a sigh. “Okay. Okay, you’re right. I’ll write it again.”

“That’s the spirit!”

He sits up, and they end up shoulder to shoulder on the bed. Chrom’s eyes are warm and grateful, his body radiating heat. She could lean into him right now, leech some of that warmth and tuck herself into his bed. He owed her after waking her up so early.

Instead, she snaps herself out of it and asks him where his essay outline is. She came here to help him, so her forces herself to forget the spell of his eyes and gets to work.


	4. Outrealms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrom ponders fate, and Robin gets drunk.

The message comes in the middle of Chrom’s last final, and he can feel his phone vibrate in his pocket, almost too loud in the silence of the classroom. He checks it first thing after he turns in his test, breathing a sigh of relief when he’s finally free from the confines of the room.

His spirits brighten considerably when he sees Robin’s name on the screen. He’s hardly seen or heard from her in the run up to finals week, with no excuse to study together since their course loads are completely different. He thought his classes were tough, but he’d never make it as a history major like her. Too much writing involved.

_Sooo drinks are half off at Khan’s Room tonight._

Chrom chuckles. Khan’s Room has to be the frattiest bar in all of Ylisstol, which doesn’t seem like her scene, but she has a way of constantly surprising him.

_You’re starting early,_ he types back, noting that it’s barely 5 PM. _Finals were that bad?_

He sees the message bubble pop up almost immediately.

_I’m not starting anything lol. One of my friends bartends here, so I’m helping her get set up. She’s anticipating a post-finals rush._

That sounds more like Robin, always willing to lend others a helping hand. She’s certainly never failed to help him out in the few months they’ve known each other. It should seem strange that he’s come to rely on her so quickly, but it feels as natural as breathing, like he’s always known and trusted her.

And the only thing he wants after dragging himself through final’s week is to see her. His stomach erupts in butterflies as he types: _Any chance we can hang out tonight?_

She responds within the minute, _Meet me here at 8?_

_Done :)_

It’s the easiest message he’s ever sent, and he counts down the hours until he’s due at Khan’s Room.

By the time he deals with Vaike hogging the bathroom, showers, picks out a more presentable outfit, and grabs something to eat, it’s about time for him to meet her. He throws on a jacket to stave off the chilly winter air and makes his way toward the bar.

It’s not too far from his apartment, the walk taking him closer to Ylisstol’s true downtown. The outside of the bar itself is nothing remarkable—a fading neon sign and college kids loitering around the outside smoking—but stepping into Khan’s Room is like stepping into another dimension. The noise is immediately overwhelming, people (lots of frat boys) screaming, playing pool, and drinking. The lighting is dim, the place is overcrowded, and it reeks of cheap beer.

Before he can text Robin, he feels a hand around his arm, and he turns to find the woman of the hour. He grins, and she says something he can’t hear, so he leans down to meet her.

“I’m over this place!” she says into his ear. “Want to go?”

He nods and feels her grip tighten on his wrist, holding on as she leads him out of the bar. The cold night air is refreshing after the oppressing heat inside, and his ears feel like they’ve been stuffed with cotton.

“I haven’t been here in so long,” he tells her when he can hear himself again. “I don’t remember it being so…”

“Awful?”

He laughs. “Well, yes.”

“Sorry about dragging you out,” she says, wincing and letting go of his arm. “We should have met up somewhere else.”

He shrugs. “I don’t mind. Where do you want to go now?”

Robin purses her lips in thought. “Let’s just walk and see where we end up.”

“Had a couple beers, huh?” he teases, starting to walk further into downtown with her in tow.

She hushes him with a laugh. “So what?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he says, biting his lip against another laugh. “I don’t know if I’ve been sober around you while you’ve been drunk.”

Her eyes are bright, and she shoves him playfully. “Time for taste of your own medicine, huh?”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing, nothing,” she parrots and locks her arm around his elbow, tugging him along once again.

He lets himself be dragged, getting a kick out of needling her while she’s a little slower on the uptake—an even playing field, finally. Eventually, they end up back at Chrom’s apartment building, sharing a six pack on the empty roof. The winter wind feels sharper up here, so they grab the comforter from Chrom’s bed and huddle in it, sitting on a concrete bench that’s been dusted with a layer of snow.

Chrom lets himself revel in the buzz of the alcohol and in Robin’s closeness, her shoulder pressed right up against his arm.

“It’s amazing how clear the stars are,” Robin marvels, her long hair stark white under the moonlight. “You wouldn’t think so with us being in the city.”

Chrom hums in agreement, taking a sip of his beer. He’s looking at her out of the corner of his eye, engrossed in the way she’s staring up at the sky. “It’s like another world.”

They sit in a comfortable silence until Robin turns her head toward him, practically resting her chin on his shoulder. “You know…our ancestors used to believe in portals to other worlds. Outrealms, they called them.”

He turns his head, too, and smells the beer on her breath. “Outrealms?”

“Yeah, like parallel worlds that existed alongside theirs. Parallel timelines, even.”

“Huh.” Chrom shifts to lean back a little and Robin shifts with him. He holds her gaze. “Do you think it’s possible?”

“Do I believe in Outrealms, you mean?”

“Or in other timelines.”

“I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility. For every choice we’ve ever made, there could be a different version of ourselves. There could be hundreds of Robins.” Her expression shifts to one of mock horror. “Hundreds of Chroms.”

He gives her the strongest glare he can muster, which isn’t much considering he’s cozied up to her drinking under the stars and that makes him want to grin like a madman. She giggles, her smile playful and coy and filled with all the secrets of the universe.

His mouth moves before he can think to stop it. “I can’t imagine making a choice that wouldn’t lead me here.”

Her expression grows soft, her eyes never leaving his. “You believe in fate then?”

It isn’t so much fate, he thinks. It’s that he’s never felt more sure in his life of where he was supposed to be. The confidence he has that this moment, _this night_ , is where he belongs. So he whispers—whispers because he’s afraid anything else will shatter the way she’s falling into him—“I do.”

His eyes fall shut, and she kisses him.


End file.
